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Book signing to follow lecture

WOODS HOLE, MA—Dr. Sally E. and Dr. Bennett A. Shaywitz, Professors of Pediatrics at the Yale University School of Medicine, will present the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Friday Evening Lecture on August 12 at 8:00 PM in the MBL's Lillie Auditorium, located on MBL Street in Woods Hole. The presentation is free and open to the public.

Extraordinary progress in understanding the nature of reading and dyslexia, including their neural underpinnings, have direct implications for the earlier and more accurate identification and more effective treatment of dyslexia. The Shaywitz's lecture, titled "The Science of Reading: Overcoming Dyslexia,” will focus on these discoveries and their translation into clinical practices for overcoming dyslexia.

Copies of Dr. Sally Shaywitz’s acclaimed national bestseller, Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at any Level, will be on sale before and after the lecture. A book signing will follow the lecture.

Dr. Sally Shaywitz received her M.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Together with her husband, Dr. Bennett Shaywitz, she established and is currently Co-Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Learning and Attention. Dr. Sally Shaywitz's research provides the basic framework—conceptual model, epidemiology and neurobiology—for the scientific study of learning disabilities, particularly dyslexia. She is the author of 200 scientific articles, chapters and books, including Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at any Level which received the 2004 Margo Marek Book Award and the 2004 NAMI Book Award.

Dr. Bennett A. Shaywitz is Professor of Pediatrics and Neurology and Chief of Pediatric Neurology at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Shaywitz received his M.D. from Washington University School of Medicine and completed his Pediatric training and then a Postdoctoral fellowship in Child Neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He has a long-standing interest in disorders of learning and attention in children and young adults. Recently Dr. Shaywitz has used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to discover differences in brain organization and function in children and adults with dyslexia and he is now using fMRI to study how the brain changes as children with dyslexia are taught to read.

Each year, the Shaywitzs have each been chosen as "One of the Best Doctors in America” and "One of America's Top Doctors.”

The final Friday Evening Lecture of the summer will be held on August 19. Linda B. Buck, co-recipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, will present the lecture "Unraveling the Sense of Smell.”